Good to Great to Gone

This is a post I started to write, but got bogged down with life, so I am posting this in process…

A few years ago, Jim Collins book Good To Great (subtitle:  Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t) was a bestselling business book filled with many ideas that resonated with those in church leadership.  I loved this book and still think about many of the concepts that are presented therein as they relate to good leadership.  Some of the principles identified as making some companies great even resemble biblical characteristics (e.g. humility at the leadership level).

This book has been back on my mind the past few days with the closing of Circuit City.  Why?  Circuit City was identified in Good to Great as a great company.  But now it is good to great to gone (and for this I am very sad for another large round of people who have lost their jobs).  My point is not to criticize Collins, for indeed Circuit City was at one point a great company (especially by his rubric/litmus test to identify great companies).  We might even look further to see if they departed from the concepts that Collins identifies as indicative of a great company – something I won’t do here.

All of this takes me to  further questions.  What is greatness that lasts?  Can we be great in an enduring way?  And in keeping with content of this post – can our institutions be great?

Visual Picture of Current Financial Crisis

I am a visual learner, so I found this chart very helpful, as it presents a simplified flow chart of how we got to our current financial state.

Crazy economic times…

You know we are living in some crazy economic times when…

An oil executive suggests that the Govenor of Georgia cancel the upcoming football game between the #3 ranked University of Georgia Bulldogs and some team from Alabama (actually the #8 ranked University of Alabama) in order to save gas.  Read about it here.  The Govenor, Sonny Perdue, who happens to be an alumnus of the University of Georgia called the idea ridiculous.  If a college football game in the South between two ranked teams gets canceled to conserve gas, well, then we truly might be in trouble.

For those who are looking for some help in understanding these uncertain times, there are some resources here. (HT:  Discerning the Times)  I found the episode on This American Life (“The Giant Pool of Money”) to be incredibly helpful.  I listened to it on our recent trip to Georgia in August.